NAFLD: Old issues and emerging concepts

摘要

This volume of Seminars is devoted to some issues that have emerged recently with regard to nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Recognized as a distinct entity 30 years ago, NAFLD remains a hot research topic due to its wide dissemination and its deep cardiometabolic entanglements, and almost every issue once held as a cornerstone has been repeatedly challenged over time. In the first article, pathologists David Kleiner and Elizabeth Brunt revisit basic concepts regarding histologic patterns in NAFLD and nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). NASH is a pathologic definition and as such, the criteria should be reproducible and have prognostic value, allowing reliable identification of patients at increased risk of progressive liver disease. This need has always had to confront the paucity of prospective studies assessing the natural history of NAFLD histologic subtypes.